Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Main Page: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Newby
My Lords, I do not think that it is a good idea for Government to try to micromanage the commercial decisions of individual airlines.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, this is a question that the noble Lord can answer. Will he tell the House, please, how many international flights have migrated from Heathrow to Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Düsseldorf in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013? If he cannot answer now, will he do so in writing?
Lord Newby
My Lords, I am happy to ask colleagues at the Department for Transport to write to the noble Lord, but I do not think that the matter is as straightforward as that. Individual airlines have a whole raft of decisions to take into consideration when they decide what they are going to do. To say simply that lack of capacity is always the cause of the kind of decision that the noble Lord talks about is to oversimplify the matter. However, I will suggest to my colleagues in the Department for Transport that they drop him a line.